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James Holmes and roleplaying

Posted by WJWalton on Sun 22 of July, 2012 04:40 PDT

The terrible act of violence in Colorado on Friday morning has left everyone looking for answers, as we always seem to do in these situations. While many of those with an audience have been quick to trot out their pet agendas (evolution, lack of prayer in schools, gun control, lack of gun control, etc.), I'm told that there has been the occasional mention of role-playing here and there.

I did a quick Google search for "James Holmes roleplaying," and most of what turned up seemed to reference online gaming, and not tabletop. The rest of what turned up began to wear away at my faith in humanity - conspiracy theories and suchlike. I closed that tab quickly, before I spotted any bloggers trying to connect the name James Holmes with the Holmes edition of D&D.

I am somewhat limited in my internet access at present, however - so if anyone spots a piece attempting to connect James Holmes to tabletop RPGs, please let me know.

One observation that I read and enjoyed (in a comment on Jolly Blackburn's Facebook wall) was this - regardless of whether or not Holmes played RPGs, the odds are a good portion of the people in the theater that he terrorized have at one time or another.

For the record, I refuse to refer to the killer by the moniker that the media have labelled him with. It is not fair to associate this act with the film and characters that so many people worked hard to develop, and so many fans have come to enjoy. It is not right to give the name of a work of creative art to someone who chose to be so destructive. It does no justice to those artists, the fans of the art, and most of all the victims who were just hoping to be among the first to enjoy a movie featuring their favorite superhero.

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